


There Are Many Dark Places

by Jade_Dragoness



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Loneliness, No Dialogue, Trope Bingo Round 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Dragoness/pseuds/Jade_Dragoness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ended in 2010. Reese has nothing left until something new appears in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are Many Dark Places

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [trope_bingo](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) prompt: au: apocalypse.

Reese exhaled slowly as he woke, his breath bloomed out in a white cloud of condensation. It was the only movement in the shattered building which he'd found. Even the cold, tearing winds had subsided for once, so that the world was like a corpse. Still, pale, and cold. Empty of life.

He'd found it last night, then only appreciating the shaky, empty shelter which took him out of the wind-chill. There weren't many buildings around anymore, and the few left standing had been claimed by the blood-clans, the shield-bearers, or the Families. Even a building like this one, with echoes of long dispersed fires having ruined the a wall and half the ceiling, there should've been someone who'd claimed it as theirs.

Now that he was rested, he gathered himself and looked around. The most recent signs he found were new, two or three days old, but they also faint. As if the person who'd been there had taken care not to leave behind any signs but hadn't quiet managed to get rid of everything. Especially against someone who was as well trained as he was. He found a set of boot prints long a wall, hidden by some recently fallen drywall. The prints revealed the signs of a man, who was either injured, or crippled. He limped as he walked. Either whomever had left them had either been killed when out hunting for food, had moved on, or had simply given up.

Reese had seen a lot of that over the last few years. Survivors who gave up, feeling too alone, too tired or too full of longing for what had been before and the realization that no matter how hard they tried, they'd never see it again. They got into a dangerous mindset, and then they took a walk out into the cold, leaving behind their coats and their weapons. He'd probably would have gone the same way, during that first six months, if alcohol hadn't become difficult and then impossible to find as hoarders grabbed every they could find that had survived the fires. Now, sober, it was hard to ignore the survival instincts hardwired into him over a decade ago. So he kept himself alive, drifting on the edges. He fought when others wouldn't walk away or let him walk away, but otherwise he stayed away from people. 

It was safer, for them and for him.

He finished exploring his shelter and found, to his astonishment, a book hidden in what he'd thought had been discarded rags. It was one of the books of the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring. Reese remembered the movies when they first came out. He'd even seen the second one in the theater somewhere in Central America. 

He studied the book, reflexively checking for traps. It wasn't the kind of mass market production he was used to seeing scattered around. There were very few intact books anymore. Most were ruined, or used to fuel fires. This one was some sort of collector's edition. It was bound in green leather, with gold lettering, and thick pages. There was even a bookmark still in place. 

He opened it, touched the first page and grimaced as his grimy fingers left smudges on the clean pages. Instead of turning the pages one by one and risk damaging it further, Reese opened the page that was bookmarked. One line had been carefully underlined.

_\--The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.--_

Reese blinked, contemplated the sentiment behind that passage. He didn't know if he agreed with it, but he couldn't deny of seductiveness of the idea. He hadn't seen any softness or gentleness in this ruin of a world. Not when hunger and desperation have carved all lingering mercy and charity away. 

And his own memories of love had been locked away for a long time even before the world burned.

Reese studied the bookmark, noticing the neatly written numbers and the oddly spaced holes that had been cut into the laminated blue paper. Reese stared at it blankly, until a possibility occurred to him. The spaces matched the length of the underlined passage. As soon as a the bookmark covered the page, as address leaped out at him. 

Startled because he hadn't really expected anything, Reese dropped the book. 

He dived for it. Urgency making him fast, catching it before it hit the ground. Adrenaline surged through him. He held the book like it was made out of spun sugar. He opened to the bookmarked page and read the revealed address again. Then he went back to the front cover, where people normally wrote their names to claim ownership. Harold, was all that was written. Just Harold, no last name.

Reese reviewed his mental map of the ruined city. He thought he could find the address. It was far to travel on foot and through the territories held by survivors, but if he was careful he'd be able to get there in a couple of days.

Curious to see if the building still stood and if Harold was still alive, Reese gathered his few belongings to go find them. It was time he moved on, anyway he wanted to ask the book owner, if he truly believed in the passage he'd underlined. But mostly, Reese wanted to return the book. Had anyone other than him found it first, it would've been tinder for a fire before too long.

Too many beautiful things had burned for him to be comfortable adding to it.

And if all of love in the world that had survived was a stranger's affection for a book, than who was he to say it wasn't worth saving.

End


End file.
